My sketchbook can be an interesting place that is becoming increasingly difficult for me to explain, I’ve learned everything and nothing about myself from it. It’s a place where I throw things together quickly, analyze the same thought until it’s pounded out, scribble out a line from a song or movie, or an isolated, fleeting thought. This randomness undoubtedly only makes sense to me, which I guess could become seemingly less accessible to the viewer…but I once again pull the “who cares” card…. sketchbook art really is about the maker, it never has to make sense… but in a strange way there is something freeing and cool to know that a particularly private vision of a passing moment in your life can become universally accessible. I know imagination and emotion make up my best pages, and re-reading them sometimes gives me a good laugh. Seems lately I have been sketchbook obsessed…I carry it with me everywhere and at all times..sometimes my friends flip through it and act as if they are reading something private, intimate and deep…(insert laugh here) When asked what the underlying meaning or premise behind it all is …which some people do… I recite my rehearsed explanation with a somber face and say:
Sometimes it’s like eating breakfast for dinner, or only one cashier and twenty people in line…or trying to get more sleep… sometimes it means…uh oh…or sometimes it’s like getting lost, or a trip inside your memory, or just a laughable blank space. Sometimes it’s like a bee sting that takes a minute to figure out what just happened…or like listening to advice…. or a conversation with yourself…or like eating the last cookie, or completely messing up, or letting go of something you really wanted. Sometimes it’s just meaningless jumble on the page but so worth it when it finally dawns on me that I’ve learned everything and nothing about myself from my sketchbook.
Works. Every. Time.
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I feel myself becoming overwhelmed, busy with plans..the daily grind of keeping up. I have always loved that John Lennon quote “life happens when your busy making other plans” I am always making other plans John… and then my art becomes hideously boring and taxing and therefore keeps me out of my studio.
Every few months I feel this strange lull creep over me. I have seen people wait their whole lives to get back into their art and immediately I derail myself from that path when I feel myself wander it. I think I jump on the path when I judge or criticize my art too closely. When I start asking myself ridiculous questions like.. is it real art? is it serious art? I’m always trying to catapult myself into a painting that is nakedly and unapologetically itself so there is a purity that demands our attention. Sometimes that’s just too damn exhausting..and man I get tired and overwhelmed trying to measure up to that standard. Yesterday began my lull of overwhelmingness..my retailiation? these watercolor characters. I can’t explain or characerize what kind of art they might fit into… or even why I am doing it…except that it is strangely fun and cracks me up…and I know myself well enough to know that it is counterproductive to ponder…and sometimes I just want to laugh and make art at the same time. So here are some watercolor portraits of “people who keep me company” while creativity plays itself out. 
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Censorship? I feel like I am in the middle ages. Recently my artwork was displayed at a public library and these were deemed “Not family friendly” and therefore pulled. It’s comical…these painting are of my family, my husband, my brother- in-law, my neighbor and a close friend’s daughter.
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Sometimes I think a painting is finished as I put on the final strokes…that is until I put it up on my wall in the living room. Before long I know exactly what it is that needs refining, what it is that is wrong and what it is that needs to be changed. Sometimes my art just needs a place on my wall…to make it right.
This is the first rendition of “The Economy” I realized my shadows were distracting…I just could’nt shake that third creepy person in the painting. I reworked the shadow and the wall…..
Finished reworked version.
“The Economy” 2009 Oil 36 in. x 32in.
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I set up my models and photograph before I paint. In my latest work “Caroline and me” I pieced together three different poses until I created a darker tone, one that was not evident in any of the single photos I took. It sometimes takes 75-200 snapped photos before I decide which facial expression best fits a pose. I love taking the liberty of changing what I want about a persons hair or clothing, like I am casting a character in a play. It’s almost like putting together a puzzle, an archaic way to photoshop I guess.
When people say that you should never work from photos because it limits your imagination….I smile.
There are no rules in art…and my imagination soars. 
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We decide the meaning we assign to life… we live our stories as our lives and stories structure our inner landscapes. Art forms like stories and long outlasts the cultures that generate them. Stories last a long time…a lifetime…our children’s lifetime…thus painting stories to me has become a fascination.
I can create a senario, set up a scene,an idea, a visual concept and someone might derive something altogether different from that same image. It’s then up to the viewer to choose how to interpret…. and afterall, isn’t that the absolute amazing power, entertainment and function of art? 
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“If you cannot capture the essence of your own self, how are you to capture the essence of someone else?”
-Bridget Brow
I needed a model for my barn wall series….right then and at that exact moment. I grabbed my camera and my daughter and sat while she snapped photos of me. I knew it would be difficult to paint…just the same as it is difficult to see myself in photo’s, but I figured I could paint myself in the light I HOPED others would see me in…and not what they actually do. Easier said than done.
In this process I found that painting oneself is one of the harder things to do, especially if you plan on being honest. My art became introspective, it is a psychological thing to look at your own face and translate what is there.
It becomes “all out there”. I know the private moment of this shot well, I was there…..I am the artist and the model which reveals something more telling than if I was just the artist.
Out of this process I noticed something evolve unknowingly….something stormy, emotional, unedited and vunerable which came out in the painting..and that is okay with me. Thank Goodness I can’t paint my own thoughts for someone to see.
I have realized painted self portraits are rarely for sale… I think artists believe no price tag could ever take the place of this self learning experience….but who knows….maybe that’s just me. 
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I am sure of two things…
1) Artistic people inspire me.
2) Talent inspires me.
Last Sunday night Jason Borbay (see blogroll) threw out an idea via facebook and twitter to paint anything by midnight. Oh… that reminds me…. 3) Creative people inspire me too.
I scrambled to find something, anything to use as a subject to paint. Bo my brother in law was there, playing his guitar. See number 2)
I took some photos as Bo sang out “They say she talks to angels… says they all know her nammmmme…..”
Bo
The canvas was big, too big for a day painting? I decided to stick with the “more is less” mentality, after all, take a photo if you want it real… let me interpret.
Me: planning out the canvas
Note to myself:
Layer paint on thick, forget the details, use one brush, see what evolves.
Painting and scribbling..
Finally, sit back, anayze (always hate this part of the process) twirl my hair…is it done? it has to be, it’s a “painting in a day” It’s finished… let it go…
Stop analyzing..its done
Finished product.
"She says she talks to angels...says they all know her name..."
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